“the girl that opened the door screamed and fainted away like a shot.”
Just his luck that the narrator arrives home after being away eight years just a day after an acquaintance also returning home informed his family that he was dead. When he shows up, of course, they think they’re seeing a ghost, hence the extreme reaction indicated by the simile at the end there.
Ghost, Part I
“They thought at first I was a ghost” is how the narrator describes the event exactly. The transition from expecting the literal incarnation of the narrator to seeing a metaphorical incarnation treads a very thing and sharp line. Normally, of course, outside the restricted boundaries of horror fiction, a ghost could only be pure metaphor for a vision associated with death. Here, however, the narrator almost is literally a ghost…for reasons previously explained.
“Such a picnic you never saw.”
The emotional tenor of the unexpected reunion quickly changes, but the only appropriate method conveying the extremities of the situation remains firmly lodged within the domain of the figurative. The family has gone from fainting to crying to celebrating. A home which had just hours before likely been as dour as a funeral is now suddenly compared to a festive family gathering beneath the sun.
“The old woman wouldn’t let go my hand for three mortal hours.”
The narrator’s mother is so overcome by the emotional rollercoaster which has taken from not seeing her son in eight years to briefly assuming he was dead to the shock of seeing him alive and returned safety that she refuses to unclasp her hand from his as though to do so would break the spell. The phrase “three mortal hours” is not entirely rare but neither is it particularly common. In the singular, “mortal hour” refers to a less specific passage of time coincident with a person transitioning from life to death. So in this context, the metaphor implies not only the joy with which his mother is happy to be reunited with her son but the son’s impatience with what had become an interminable display on his mother’s part. The tone of the narrator’s recounting of this strange event clearly indicates that he views with far less emotional extremity than anyone else in the family.
Ghost, Part II
The whole bizarre event eventually forced the narrator to actually swear an oath upon the Bible that he would never again leave home while his parents were still alive. In reality, he only lasted a week before he could not bear being cooped up without work. So, in a much greater sense than his seemingly spectral return from the dead, the narrator really is a metaphorical ghost in his family’s home. He is a constant presence that is hardly ever there in physical form.
